ICS Power Management

Moving to ICS on the Samsung SII has been underwhelming for the most part - partly driven by the fact that the UI has been kept relatively stale by Samsung, and made worse by the fact that ICS while powerful, has more than a few hiccups during operation.

But there is one aspect that ICS is really good with - memory management. ICS comes with a Honeycomb inspired task switcher that also doubles as a task killer. Flicking an application in the task switcher kills it, releasing the memory and plausibly making battery usage better.

Well at least that was the theory, till I tried to put it in practice and presto - it worked! Check out the screenshot showing a run time of a day and eight hours with more than 40% of the juice still to go. Yes, the usage was not as heavy as I normally do with the phone, but still a 32 hour run time was not something I had frankly expected.

Impulse Purchase

At long last, my Nokia 5800 has been retired from active service.

It has been replaced by my new Samsung Galaxy SII. And all this happened within a matter of a few hours.

I had been eyeing an Android phone for a while now. My first choice would have been the vanilla Nexus series - but they tend to be far too pricey and missing carrier specific frequency capabilities on their wireless chipsets. The next choice was the Galaxy series from Samsung. And that is when I saw this deal from RadioShack:

While this was about $50 more than the Black Friday deal from Radioshack, it was still a full $100 less than the discounted price on AT&T's website. And it hit my key checklist items.

• A tried and tested phone chassis - the Galaxy S II is the second in the highly successful Galaxy series.
• Minimal UI customization - unlike the HTC Sense UI, TouchWiz UI is relatively lightweight and optimized for speed.
• A known upgrade path to Ice Cream Sandwich.
• No known carrier hindrances to phone capabilities.
• Speed and responsiveness.

The Galaxy SII hit all points on the checklist - making the decision to switch surprisingly quick and painless. And RadioShack was not that bad an experience, as far as the tactical switch went. On a side note, I need to remind myself that RadioShack is probably a better option for buying electronics when I want something outside the standard mainstream products.

RIP: my ageing Nokia 5800 - you were a trailblazer, and were better than you had any reason to be. Yet, the trail was left cold after you, for no fault of yours. You will be missed.